Comment (2)

• "Hundreds of schools in disadvantaged areas have shown that they can be outstanding, and hundreds more are good."
  
  Quite possibly true in the past "Sir"(not pompous at all then) Wilshaw. Unfortunately under your new regime there will be few schools in poor areas who will be judged anything other than satisfactory. You evidently know this which is why you have already said you are going to revisit 700 outstanding schools. So on the one hand you want to rely on the fact that schools have being judged outstanding and on the other you are revisiting them because you dont think they are actually outstanding lol......You and your mate Gove are made for each other, utterly utterly clueless

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  21:13
  24 February, 2012

  Rudedog

• Sir Michael Wilshaw,
  
  Good to hear from you (not!).
  
  You WERE a bully as a headteacher and you ARE a bully as 'Chief Inspector' of Ofsted. So it is no surprise that I read: 'I am delighted that my announcements about proposed changes to Ofsted inspections are generating considerable interest from both your readers and commentators'.
  
  You are 'delighted' to have caused a fuss!
  You want us to be frightened eh?
  
  Here is the news: Teachers aren't frightened of ridiculous pompous people. We were more worried when Ofsted could be taken seriously. Under your leadership it is being turned into a joke. A political arm of the right-wing minister Gove. Political lackies get laughed at in this country.
  
  Quote: 'Hundreds of schools in disadvantaged areas have shown that they can be outstanding, and hundreds more are good. This excellent practice can and should be emulated. An increasing number of good schools are helping weaker ones to improve. And yes, to reassure Professor Boyle, of course I appreciate that schools are different and that pupils are different, too. I do not advocate a one-size-fits-all approach, quite the opposite, but I do advocate a no-excuses approach and that means we do not give up on any pupil.'
  
  THIS flies in the face of EVIDENCE. Where are the hundreds of schools in disadvantaged areas which have shown that they can be 'outstanding'? Name them and show that low socio-economic areas can produce as many outstanding schools as high socio-economic areas. I'm waiting!
  
  I love the way you built a career on improving one school from 'the worst in the world' as the press cuttings say to mythical Oxbridge feeder school. Please be honest and admit that the school you took over had been in the past an excellent school (ask several members, doctors & professors, of the current House of Lords who went there!) which fell on hard times. You did a good job restoring it to it's past glory. According top Gove & his PR machine you all but cured cancer while a headteacher! This is PR nonsense.
  
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  You commented on Joe Nutt who is in fact a Tory propaganda person (see http://joenutt.squarespace.com/ ) In blog extracts Joe Nutt demonstrates a crystalline hatred of all things public sector. He freely supports Free Schools and Academies pretending that they are forms of independent school like Eton without checking the evidence that Eton is a charity. Pretending that the MacDonalds motives for running Free Schools and Academies demonstrated by the private sector are the same as the charitable ideas of long standing independent school charities (whose ethos I don't agree with; but that is another story) is a complete lie.
  
  I can see where you Sir Mick are coming from on this and I don't like it. THAT isn't Ofsted's job! You say you support the state sector but are working to set up private franchises. Hmmmmmm!
  
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  You, Sir Michael once stated that, more than 90 per cent of teachers who applied were going through the threshold, yet 40 per cent of teaching was "not good enough". Do you remember that last month?
  
  Once again Sir Michael you fail to understand what it means when it is said: 40 per cent of teaching was satisfactory or less. This DOES NOT mean 40 per cent of teachers were satisfactory or less. The variable 'taught lessons' is a different variable to 'teachers quality'; though obviosly they are dependent variables. All teachers deliver lessons of varying quality all the time so of the 90 per cent of teachers who got through threshold; some of their lessons will have been 'satisfactory' but most will have been above satisfactory.
  
  Reading comments about your back lack of grasp concerning elementary statistics worries me.
  
  Ofsted have a remit to examine the quality of schools.
  
  Headteachers have a remit which includes teacher pay.
  
  Let us be clear: Ofsted have no remit to interfere in staff pay. At the first attemp by Ofsted to influence one teachers pay all teachers should walk out and refuse to cooperate with any Ofsted requests. Have you got that?
  
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  Try this for logic Sir Mick.
  
  1. Ofsted were set up to improve schools.
  2. By their own data they haven't done a good job.
  3. Ofsted should immediately issue themselves with a ''notice to improve''.
  4. If Ofsted haven't sorted schools out by September 2012 Ofsted should close itself.
  
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  Meanwhile over in Teacher Training James Noble-Rogers, Director of UCET who represent all universities that undertake teacher training, sent a letter to you, Sir Michael, welcoming you into your new role and asking if he could meet you to talk about the recent changes to the way Ofsted inspect teacher training. The reply was off-hand and dismissive, (I have a copy!) explaining how you Sir Michael are too busy to meet James. It points out that you, Sir Michael was recently a headteacher and you place great emphasis on headteachers 'leading on pedagogy'; whatever THAT means.
  
  Reading between the lines we can all see a warning that you, Sir Michael are not interested in teacher training taking place in universities. I presume Gove has TOLD you that. THAT is a very worrying thing if Ofsted are assessing teacher training in universities. It certainly looks like you, Sir Michael have made your mind up on the quality of provision before any inspections have taken place.
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  A few thoughts on coasting:
  
  1. The former Tory education minister Sir Keith Joseph once complained because half the population of school children were below average in mathematics. Teachers complained Sir Keith was below average in his understanding of the word average. However, I do believe Sir Keith was an absolute 'genius' when measured against Gove and his current Ofsted hit-man.
  
  2. It is impossible to use statistical evidence to look for 'coasting' schools since Gove got rid of 'Contextual Value Added' data. A coasting school will simply be a school who refuses to become an academy & the 'solution' to that will be to turn that school into an academy.
  
  3. Sir Michael said there were “too many coasting schools” that were not providing an “acceptable standard” of education; if this is true could he offer more evidence than the one statistic that 28% (described by him as a third!) of schools were graded satisfactory? The answer to this is 'no' by the way.
  
  4. NUT leader, Christine Blower has spotted what is going on: "The government's real agenda behind this change is of course inventing yet another category of schools that it will then seek to force into academy status."

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  12:11
  29 February, 2012

  Brooke Bond